Should the heirs of creative artists control the interpretation and production of works written by long dead authors? Should the law allow Shakespeare's heirs to determine how the Bard's works are to be staged?

The New York Times visits this issue here.

This looks very bad.

Sun, 27 May 2007 19:46:17 +0900 PatchA

Dear all,

Finally, the full text of Korea US FTA was released last Friday. (http://www.mofat.go.kr/mofat/fta/eng/eng_list.htm)

It has many poisonous articles. We are very worried about the IPR chapter and the confirmation letters of IPR have very dangerous things which the former US FTA didn't have.

For examples, both governments agree on the objective of shutting down the internet sites that permit unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or transmission of copyright works. Korean government are shutting down even P2P service and webhard service. I think most of the internet sites including portal, UCC/UGC, blog sites etc.can be shut down by the government.

And it also includes strong enforcement activities on book printing on university campuses.

If this Korea US FTA is passed, then the US will request other countries to include these things in the following FTA. So it needs to have international solidarity activities to stop this kind of US FTA.

Please check below and we welcome of your criticizing opinions or statement to this IP chapter of Korea US FTA. We will post it to our struggle website (http://nofta-ip.jinbo.net) And please forward it to other people world-wide.

Korean Alliance Against the Korea-U.S. FTA and social organizations will have a press conference about the problem of IPR chapter of Korea US FTA on Monday(May 28th).

In soldarity, patcha

============================ Kim Jeong Woo (PatchA) Korean Progressive Network 'Jinbonet' Tel) +82-2-701-7687 Fax) +82-2-701-7112 Web) http://www.jinbo.net Email) i@patcha.jinbo.net / patcha@patcha.jinbo.net ============================

? Confirmation letter (Online Piracy Prevention) - Full text - http://www.mofat.go.kr/mofat/fta/eng/e45.pdf The Parties agree on the objective of shutting down Internet sites that permit the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or transmission of copyright works, of regularly assessing and actively seeking to reduce the impact of new technological means for committing online copyright piracy, and of providing generally for more effective enforcement of intellectual property rights on the Internet.

Korea also agrees on the objective of shutting down Internet sites that permit the unauthorized downloading (and other forms of piracy) of copyright works, including so-called webhard services, and providing for more effective enforcement of intellectual property rights on the Internet, including in particular with regard to peer-to-peer (p2p) services.

Korea will work to prevent, investigate, and prosecute internet piracy. In doing so, Korea will work with the private sector, the other Party, and other foreign authorities. ? Confirmation letter (Promoting Protection and Effective Enforcement of Copyrighted works on University Campuses) - Full text - http://www.mofat.go.kr/mofat/fta/eng/e46.pdf The Parties recognize the importance of preventing illegal copying and distribution of copyrighted works on university campuses and providing effective enforcement against book piracy. Therefore, consistent with Korea's May 2004 Master Plan for IPR, Korea agrees to continue to increase its efforts to improve awareness of copyright infringement activities and book piracy on university campuses and reduce illegal reproduction and distribution of copyrighted works.

The Full text of IP Chapter is below Intellectual Property Rights - http://www.mofat.go.kr/mofat/fta/eng/e43.pdf Confirmation letter (Internet Service Provider) http://www.mofat.go.kr/mofat/fta/eng/e44.pdf

Confirmation letter (Promoting Protection and Effective Enforcement of Copyrighted works on University Campuses) http://www.mofat.go.kr/mofat/fta/eng/e46.pdf

Confirmation letter (Online Piracy Prevention) - http://www.mofat.go.kr/mofat/fta/eng/e45.pdf

For those who read French, economist Bernard Salanie´s views on IP.

Martin Osborne discovered a copy of my book with Drew Fudenberg Theory of Learning in Games available as a free download. It comes with a link to buying the book on Amazon, and appears to consist of a scan of the table of contents together with an electronic version that once appeared online, and now is available only with a password. We´ve been trying to get the publisher MIT Press to give us permission to put the book online for several years now. They always smile and act friendly like they will do it, but never actually do anything. Needless to say, I´m not rushing to bring any new book projects to MIT Press at this point. Since they won´t give us permission to put it online, it seems the next best thing is post the link.

From Stephen Spear who correctly comments that all the IP lobbyists getting together to form one giant lobby cannot be a good thing.

I´ve been too tied up with other things to blog lately. This came in a few weeks ago from Fred Luk

Playa Cofi Jukebox , an on-line music site just went off-line today. It posts on its website that "The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has "advised" us that our delivery of user selectable streaming audio music "...distributes copies of digital files of RIAA member sound recordings to end users," and is therefore in violation of the member artist copyrights."

I guess technically, the site does violate copyrights laws since I don't suppose they pay any royalties like the radio stations do.

I have been listening to music on that site for only a month or so. It's great - I listen to great hits of different years in the background while doing work on the computer. Two days ago, links to music (hits) after 1964 were taken off. Today, the above message appears. But it also says: "We will take a few days to find a new way to provide you with the music you love at this site." It will be interesting to see what kind of "new way" they will come up with and how long will it take the RIAA to catch up with it.

Randy Barnett over at Volokh takes on the ruthless George Lucas/Star Wars Copyright Empire -

[T]he laugh is really going to be on Lucasfilm because, as we all know, people won't invest scarce time producing creative works that others want to watch without the financial incentives provided by intellectual "property" rights granted for "limited times" (i.e. in perpetuity). So it is safe to predict that no one will contribute any mashups to the new Starwars.com website. Boy, will that be embarrassing for them!

We have posted a lot about Helprin's Perpetual Copyright article in the last week, but I can't resist referencing two other provocative posts. One is a twenty-five year old short story on copyright and intellectual property link here. The other is entitled In Search of Lost Copyright: Disney & Proust link here. Hat-tips are due to Matt Yglesias link here and Ross Douthat link here.

Stimulating stuff. Thanks to Helprin for provoking further thought--he ran it up the flagpole, but I don't see many saluting.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the Scott Miracle-Gro Co. is suing its start up rival TerraCycle Inc. for infringing its trade dress, and for false advertizing. Scott claims TerraCycle's packaging and signage is violating its intellectual property. It also disputes its younger rival's claim to have superior products. Not surprisingly, Scott wants the profits from the products at issue deposited to its bank account.

TerraCycle is fighting back here.

Tom Szaky, the co-founder and CEO of TerraCycle, says that the suit could put his company out of business.

But that's the point isn't it? If you can't beat 'em fair and square, use the state to beat 'em up! Lee A. Iacocca, in his May 28 Business Week Guest Commentary, "Chrysler's New Driver," [I can't find a link] says that "Leadership in the car industry means knowing where corporate policy ends and public policy begins. You see, companies are not separate entities from government." Mussolini couldn't have said it better. You see, it's okay for a big corporation like Scott to use the power of the State to cut off the air supply of a smaller competitor, especially a pesky one like TerraCycle, that is gaining market share and space at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target, and other retailers.

In the meantime, those of us who advocate liberty and free markets and oppose intellectual monopoly can take a page from Captain Boycott's book and boycott the Scott Miracle-Gro Co. and its products. We can also buy TerraCycle's innovative goods and support it morally, and by getting the word out that competition is good and monopoly is bad, especially the monopoly of so-called "intellectal property."

Matt Yglesias has a serious and fun piece on Helprin's Perpetual Copyright link here. The comments are interesting as well. Have a look.